Zira Joins the Pride
by Agent Ninety-Nine
Summary: How Zira came to Pride Rock, and what happened then. [Complete.]
1. Stranger in the Pridelands

Scar heard the hyaenas before he saw them: the shrill hoots and shrieks, and that unmistakable chattering laugh that chilled the heart of every honest creature. When hyaenas were that happy, someone was in trouble. 

The King was patrolling the borders of his country. The Pridelands were parched and barren, but beautiful in Scar's eyes because they were his. And on this evening, with a low red sun painting sky and land in crimson, umber and lion-yellow, the unchanging beauty of the landscape shone through its poor condition. 

He could see the hyaenas now, skipping and bounding around some animal that lay motionless at their feet. They were his allies, but he hated them - their mean, shallow minds, their needless cruelty. How could he ever have thought they had something in common? They reminded him of the worst parts of his own nature, but what he was ashamed of and tried to keep buried, they revelled in. 

"What have you there, my friends?" he asked, padding up to the group. The leader of the hyaenas stopped his capering and looked round, startled. 

"Oh, hey Chief. Didn't see ya." 

"I asked what you had there?" Scar grumbled threateningly. 

"A lion!"   
"_Two_ lions!"   
"Yeah!" 

Nodding and bowing, the shaggy bunch drew back from their prey. 

A lioness looked up at Scar with yellow eyes that held no hope or energy; hate was the only expression left to her. She was stick-thin and dusty, though he could still make out the darker blaze on her forehead. Under her forelegs was a half-grown cub, pressed close to his mother and terrified. She had sunk down over him in an attempt to protect him from the hyaena mob. 

Scar growled. "Clear off," he said shortly. The hyaena leader put his head on one side.   
"But you said to drive away any lions that entered the Pridelands!"   
"You _said_!" echoed another, whining like a cub given an unjust smack.   
"I changed my mind. It is a royal prerogative," Scar smirked. The confused hyaenas milled away, not daring to argue. 

"Up," Scar commanded the lioness. She glared rebelliously at him.   
"Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just lie here and die, how about that?" 

"Mother!" mewed the cub, poking her with an anxious paw. 

"Oh Nuka...all right...Mother was joking." She got up and stood woodenly, head low. Though she clearly hadn't eaten or drunk for some time, she was not about to beg for favours. Nor was Scar about to offer them. They locked gazes, two proud spirits meeting. 

The cub Nuka didn't share his mother's stoicism. "Please Sir - I'm hungry," he said, blinking up at Scar. He was even thinner than she was, a bag of bones with a slight pot belly that suggested worms. Poor nourishment had stunted him and left him with rickety legs, and Scar could make out parasites crawling in his fur. 

The lioness hissed at her son and cuffed him smartly, sending him rolling. Scar chuckled.   
"You can't feed a cub on smacks. Come with me. And tell me your name." 

"I don't take orders," the lioness stated, turning her shoulder slightly away. 

"So I see. But that wasn't an order, it was an offer. And I make those rarely." Scar held her gaze for a moment, then pointed his nose towards Pride Rock and began to walk. 

He had not gone far when he heard light footsteps behind him. Nuka was following. Then the lioness appeared at his shoulder, walking level with the king. She opened her mouth to speak, changed her mind, then changed it again. 

"I am Zira," she said. 

* * * * *

Old Rafiki the mandrill saw the little procession approaching from his tree, and clutched his temples as a sudden spasm of pain shot through his head. He rocked to and fro, staggered by the strength of his premonition. They didn't look like much, this lean, bony lioness and her untidy son. But he knew as surely as if it had already happened that they meant bad trouble for Pride Rock. 


	2. Zira's Story

"She can't stay, Scar!" Sarabi said firmly. "The Pridelands are overcrowded and there's not enough game to go round. We can't feed ourselves, certainly not one more and a cub." 

Her eyes rested on Nuka for a moment. He was about the age her own son Simba had been at the time of his death. How different the two cubs were! Her boy Simba had been handsomer by far, she was sure. This rather plain cub was undersized, thin and scrawny, his greyish fur patchy with mange and from where he had scratched at fleas and bugs. The lad needed looking after, and his young mother needed help and advice. 

What would her husband, Mufasa the king, have done if he were in this situation? He would never have got into it in the first place. Scar had over-hunted the lands and driven the game away. When the rains failed and the plants died, Mufasa would have led the pride elsewhere for a season or two rather than staying in a dead land. But if he had found himself in these circumstances, would he have made room for a couple of starving lions? He was just and kind, but also wise, and the good of his pride always came first with him. She looked at Scar. 

The king wore the obstinate look Sarabi remembered from their early days. As a cub he never could bear to admit he was in the wrong, to lose an argument or a battle, not to get what he wanted. When all else failed he would shout "No no no no no!" and drum the ground with his forepaws until he got his way. It was clear that Scar wanted this lioness to join the pride and would ignore anyone who disagreed with him, just as he had over the hyaenas taking up residence at Pride Rock and the pride's remaining there when the hunting failed. 

Zira lay passively while the Pridelanders discussed her fate. This was not a good place to be. She could sense fear in these lions, a crushing of the spirit, and resentment of their king, the scarred lion who had brought her here. Hyaenas lolled about, not too close to the lions but clearly not bothered by them either, and leered at her when they caught her glaring at them. 

Scar also examined Nuka. His gangling awkwardness and the frizzy black mane beginning to appear on his head and chest reminded the king of his own cubhood, a time when everything had seemed so much simpler than it was now. 

For a moment he regretted his rash offer of hospitality. The lionesses were rebellious; the only thing keeping them from revolt was their hunger and exhaustion. Introducing a strange female might push them over the edge. 

But Sarabi nodded. "Welcome to Pride Rock, Zira." 

The mood of the pride shifted; the others followed Sarabi's lead more readily than they did Scar's orders, and joined in her welcome. _For what it's worth,_ the old queen added bitterly to herself. She kept this thought private, however, and gave lioness and cub a warm smile. "Won't you tell us how you came here?" 

Zira wasn't used to talking. She had had no company but Nuka for a long time, and his chatter got on her nerves so she seldom encouraged it. She would have preferred to stay quietly in the shadows. But finding herself the centre of a circle of interested lions, she sat erect, curled her tail around her paws and, for the first time, told the story of her life. 

She was born many days' journey away, in a hot land. Her mother died when she was barely weaned, and she scraped an existence by fighting and jostling the other cubs for a share of meat. There was no mother to show her the tenderest morsels or clear a space for her at the kill. Yet it was a time of plenty for her pride, and she survived. 

The prince of this pride was a young lion named Mazoo. They played together sometimes. One day when Zira was feeling strangely friendly and came up close to rub against him, he played a game she didn't know, and didn't like. He hurt her and she cried and struggled away from under him. After that they avoided each other. 

But presently Zira's stomach began to grow large, as though she had the water-sickness. She noticed the other lions whispering together as she passed, and Mazoo held his head low and wouldn't meet her eye. Then she was summoned before the king and queen. 

As gently as he could, King Omid explained to the young lioness that she was carrying the prince's cubs. But the prince was not hers; he was promised to his cousin Momra. And her cubs would be born before Momra's and would perhaps try to claim the throne when they grew up. Zira had a choice: either she left the pride, or when her cubs were born they would be taken from her and destroyed. 

At first Zira wanted only to stay at home. What were cubs to her? She didn't want cubs, hadn't asked for them. Then she saw the look in Queen Rasha's eyes, the cold anger, and she knew that this wasn't her home any more. She owed nothing to the pride; her life had been trouble and hardship since her mother died, and now Mazoo had filled her with _his_ cubs and it was _she_ who must suffer. She left that night. 

If her life had been hard before, it was next to impossible now. She had never been a skilled huntress, but now must improve or starve. When she couldn't catch anything she dug mice out of their burrows or drove the buzzards off some stinking week-old kill. She had always been fierce; now she would have fought to the death over a dry bone. And all the time her belly grew, and the more food she craved the less able she was to get it. 

Then there was pain, hours of pain through which she lay on the ground gasping and trying to push the thing that was hurting her out of her body. Carrion birds gathered, attracted by her screams, to watch the lion flopping in the dust. She would surely die soon, they thought. But they were wrong. Life, not death, was what the pain brought. 

Zira looked with wonder at her single cub. The cord which connected them hurt her and she bit it through. The cub was dirty, wet with blood and other things. She licked him clean, and he, knowing what to do better than his mother did, crawled between her legs and latched on to her teat. 

"So it was you in there? You're a tiny thing to cause me so much trouble." Zira looked at her new little dark-coated baby, and knew love. "I'll call you Nuka," she murmured as she fell asleep. 

What chance do a single lioness and her baby cub have in the vast savannah? Zira had to find enough food to keep herself alive as well as providing milk for her son, at the same time guarding him from predators. For the first few days Zira could move no more than a few yards from her little one in search of food, and carried him with her when she went to get a drink from the nearby stream. As soon as Nuka's eyes opened she began to take him on her hunting trips, concealing him in a nest of grass and instructing him sternly not to make the smallest peep while she was away. Even so, she always expected him to be gone on her return. 

They were lucky. Nothing touched Nuka, who grew large enough to run by his mother's side and even sometimes to drive smaller game towards her. He was a clumsy youth, but deadly serious about his task. Zira probably lost more kills than she gained because of his help. When this happened she would snap and snarl at him - if he were to have a chance in life, he needed to acquire the skills she had had to teach herself. "I tried my best, Mother!" he would wail. "Not good enough!" Zira would reply. 

It was a strange, half-mad love she had for her son. Sometimes his very presence reminded her of the wrong Mazoo and his family had done her, and she could hardly bear to look at him. But at other times she felt that Nuka was the only good thing that had ever happened to her. Poor Nuka - his mother was his entire world, and he loved her with an adoration that was almost worship. He received her smacks and cuddles with equal gratitude, accepting that whatever he got was what he deserved. 

They roamed the savannah, mother and son. Never staying too long in one place, for when Zira had time to think she became restless and unhappy. The only cure was to keep on moving - not going towards a goal, but away from the black thoughts that haunted her. At last they came into a land where game was scarce. Zira pushed on, feeling sure that abundance lay beyond the bleak plain. But Nuka became weak, so weak that Zira was compelled to feed him every scrap she came across to keep the spark of life in him burning. The lioness had an iron will, but her body was not of iron, and when the hyaenas came she could fight no longer and had only the strength to fall across her cub so he should not be taken first. Thus Scar had found them. 

Zira's tale, told with blunt honesty, touched her audience deeply. Scar felt like a hero, the one who had rescued her from a life of suffering. Sarabi contrasted Zira's life with her own, which up until the death of her husband and son had been the happiest a lioness could have. Zira, who had sat with her head bowed since finishing her narrative, looked up into the faces of friends where hostile strangers had been. Someone had given Nuka a bone, and he was crunching it noisily to get at the tender marrow within. Sarabi again spoke for the whole pride: 

"Come, Zira. You must be tired. I'll show you where to get water, then we'll find a spot for you to sleep." 


	3. New Love, New Life

Zira never meant to stay long. Just until she had rested and recovered her strength, then she would move on to some happier land. She had never felt herself fully part of her old pride, and was wary of attaching herself to this one. It was Nuka, at first, who tied her to Pride Rock. 

"Wash the cub, Sarabi," Scar had said. Sarabi growled at his insolence, but when she looked at Nuka her anger melted away. Under Zira's watchful eye she led the cub to a quiet spot and gave him the most thorough cleaning he had ever had. Nuka squeaked and squalled and wriggled like a fish, but Sarabi, used to the ways of little boys, held him firmly down with a paw as she licked between his toes and inside his ears. If she shut her eyes she could almost imagine it was Simba's warm body against hers... 

His ordeal over, Nuka dashed away like a wet cat and hid behind his mother. But soon he found that he was feeling less itchy and uncomfortable, as Sarabi's grooming had removed the parasites from his skin and fur. Later he caught his reflection in a puddle as he drank, and admired the slick shininess of his coat and his newly glossy mane. So he asked her to wash him again, and again, and as she washed she told him stories and taught him the way of the hunt. 

Nuka still loved his mother, but now he often trailed Sarabi, sticking as close as her shadow. Zira felt a pang of jealousy when he left her side. But it was good for her son to have a tutor, someone to teach him the things Zira had never had a chance to learn. And it gave her time to herself...time she could spend with Scar. 

Ah. Scar. 

At first Zira was too weak to hunt with the other lionesses. While they searched for game, she and Scar spent hours together. Both were solitary by nature, but Scar offered his protection until she was able to defend herself against other predators and Zira was sensible enough to accept. To begin with they were silent companions, each revolving their own secret thoughts. But before long one or other of them voiced a thought, and a halting conversation began which picked up speed as each discovered the pleasure of talking with the other. After that they spent the days of Zira's recovery talking, and often continued far into the night. 

Zira had at last found someone who knew what it was to be lonely. Scar might have grown up a prince, with an older brother by his side, but he had been as alone at heart as the orphan Zira. Overshadowed by his bumptious, extrovert brother, poor at making friends with the other cubs and largely ignored by his parents as they worked to mould the young Mufasa into a king, he grew into a solitary, introspective lion. By the time he would have liked someone to talk to, it was too late - friendship groups within the pride had been formed, and those who did not hate the surly Scar were not interested in him. 

Even after he attained the royal throne, Scar was friendless. Sarabi, deep in mourning, spurned his approaches. Those who had disliked him before saw no reason to change just because he was king; they would obey him, but no more than that. He was not good at dealing with problems and disputes as his brother had been, and soon the pride stopped bothering to approach him with their troubles. Hyaenas, he quickly learned, made a sycophantic audience; they listened appreciatively to his boasts and cheered him on, but it brought little satisfaction. And try holding an intelligent conversation with one! He stood in isolation: monarch of all he surveyed, friend of none. 

Then came Zira. New blood - someone to judge him by who he was, not by who he had been. A fresh start. Scar had been intrigued by the lioness' spirit since their first meeting, and it was not long before he began to make cautious overtures to her. 

On her part, Zira was overwhelmed by his kindness. It was in her nature to be suspicious, and after Mazoo she was not going to be won over all at once. So she locked her gratitude and attraction deep inside. 

He had told her his real name, Taka, but she refused to call him by it. "Scar suits you," she said. "Life has scarred you, as it has me. King Scar!" 

One day she told him how she had come by her own scar, the perfect circle missing from her right ear. 

She and Nuka had arrived in a wonderful place, a lush valley bursting with life. Tropical green was everywhere, birds sang in the trees and an abundance of creatures laced the air with tempting scents of prey. At last Zira felt at peace, as though she had found her home. There was so much game that even a poor huntress like herself could find enough food and more. Nuka practised his own fumbling little pounces and sometimes caught himself some small animal, which made him cocky as a monkey and Zira only slightly less proud. This was paradise. 

The end came out of the blue. As Zira and Nuka swayed towards their sleeping-place, relaxed and full, there was a noise like a dozen thunderclaps at once and a sharp, acrid smell of fire. At the same moment some buzzing insect struck Zira's ear, deafening her with a sudden burning pain. Alert now, she smelled a new animal on the loose and saw flattened grass where something heavy had passed. A powerful predator had taken over their paradise. The lions fled, never to return, as the thunder sounded around them and the whizzing, killing flies swarmed. The bullet-hole through her ear was not the only scar Zira bore from that day; she was warier and more ferocious than ever. 

"My poor Zira!" Scar reached out to her, then put his paw to his temple, to the livid mark that ran across his eye. He drew breath as if to speak, then shook his head. 

"Zira - I want to tell you, but I can't. Not yet. Some day I will." A shudder passed over his frame, and Zira felt a strong urge to touch him and offer comfort. 

Instead she made Nuka the recipient of her newfound, overflowing affection. He couldn't believe his luck would last, and was sure that soon he would do something stupid to displease her again. But his mother's sunny side continued to show, the darker half of her nature in remission. The other lionesses, too, made a fuss of Nuka, who was at present the only adolescent male in the pride. The scrawny, dust-coloured cub began to blossom. 

"I'm ready." Zira said.   
"Are you sure you're fit to hunt?" asked Sarabi, looking her up and down. "Game's scarce - we can't afford any dead wood on the team."   
"I said I'm ready." Her lip curled up, and there was a faint snarl on her last word. Sarabi ignored the hinted threat and nodded. "Stay with me, then. We'll take the western quarter." 

Zira felt little of the confidence she had displayed to the leader of the lionesses. She was aware that her first hunt with the pride would be a test of her abilities, one she could not afford to fail. It was a long time since she had hunted as part of a team. Sarabi's lionesses could read each others' intentions from a single movement, almost a single breath; Zira the stranger, the loner, would have to work hard to keep up. 

The pride ranged far, out of necessity, and night had bitten deep into evening by the time they came upon a herd of zebra. In the darkness the striped beasts merged into one striped beast, and Zira, squinting, could not make out one individual animal, let alone be sure where lay the vulnerable head and where the kicking hindpart. 

"Choose," breathed Sarabi. Zira flattened her ears, hearing a voice that wanted her to fail.   
"You think I want you to miss?" It was as if the wise old lioness had read her thoughts. Her eyes wrinkled in an almost-smile. "We are hungry, Zira, and this may be the only game within a day's journey. I would far rather use a chosen huntress, or better several. But it's a traditional test for those who want to join the pride. You must make the kill." She looked away into the night and added softly, "My husband would have wished it." 

Just then one of the zebra moved nervously, lifting its head. An eye caught the moonlight and flashed green. Zira took off instantly, homing in on her quarry as its companions scattered in alarm. Now its form was clear and she swung wide, coming in from the side to take its neck and shoulders. The zebra's run was begun too late and it could not reach its top speed before the lioness was upon it. She leaped, her full weight across its back. The zebra sprawled and kicked uselessly out as Zira's jaws clamped over its muzzle. Its eyes rolled wildly as it struggled to breathe, and its limbs thrashed in the dust. Zira hung on as she had always hung on to prey, to life, to hope: fiercely. With a couple of final jerks and a long, convulsive shudder, the animal stilled. 

Sarabi joined her at the kill. "Dead - and scarcely a mark on him," she said, sniffing the corpse. "I'm impressed." Zira's mouth was watering, but she waited for the elder lioness to make the first move.   
"You first," Sarabi told her, smiling. "Get a good bellyful before you call the rest." Zira immediately sank her face into the tender rump, emerging bloody and pleased. She arched her neck and gave the loud roar that meant _I have killed!_ and also _Let us eat!_

She was sawing off a tasty joint to keep for Nuka when Sarabi spoke.   
"Zira...you're a good lioness, and you are welcome in the pride. But there's something you need to know: be careful of Scar." Zira directed her full attention to the former queen. This was it - the mystery that had puzzled her, the discontent she had sensed in the pride.   
"Why?" she demanded, licking a dribble of blood from her cheek.   
"He has never been trustworthy. Even in our cubhood..."   
"But what has he done?" Zira pressed. Sarabi hesitated.   
"Nothing...that could be proved. But none of us trust him."   
"You've never given him a chance!" Zira snarled, more fiercely than she had intended to. The strength of her own feelings took her by surprise. Sarabi stared, astonished, then comprehension washed over her. The lionesses looked at each other for a moment, two pairs of eyes wide. 

Then the rest of the pride arrived, and the feast began. 

Zira did not sleep that night. She watched the stars, Nuka a scruffy bundle curled against her side, until dawn washed pink around the great rock. The full-bellied pride stretched and sprawled contentedly. A whole haunch had been saved for Scar, and he had praised Zira at every mouthful. "You clever little huntress. Well done, my girl, well done. You showed these lazy lionesses how to do it." Sarabi looked bitter at this, but the king's good moods were rare and to be encouraged. Now Zira gathered his words to her, the way Nuka as a baby had carried around some stick or stone or bone that took his fancy, examining and chewing over every one. Was Scar merely glad that there had been a kill, or was it the killer that interested him? Inexperienced still, she could not tell. 

A king may do what he wishes. Any lioness he wants is his for the taking. Scar had grown up believing this, and had seen the ease with which his brother selected and took Sarabi. But when his own time came he found it was not as simple as it seemed. The old queen should have been his by rights, but she had rejected him utterly, prepared to leave the pride rather than surrender to Scar. He knew then that Mufasa and Sarabi had had a true love, that she would have gone with him if he had been the lowliest of rogues instead of the Pridelands king. Beautiful young Nala had refused him; she had been promised to his nephew Simba, and was loyal to his memory. She had vanished some time ago, and Scar secretly missed her youthful vigour and cheeky disobedience. 

In the early days of his reign he had tried taking unwilling lionesses by force, but it was a humiliating business that was joyless at best and at worst a physical impossibility. He had learned that a king too can suffer rejection and heartbreak. So it was that, although he could have commanded Zira to be his, he held back. Her position in the pride was precarious and she was obliged to obey the king's every wish, but he was afraid that she would not. Besides, what he felt for Zira was not pure lust - he wanted her to come to him. He wanted to be loved. 

As usual, it was Scar who approached Zira. Whatever she felt for him he was still the king, to be respected. Besides, she was a solitary creature and seldom made the first move in any interaction. 

"I wanted to congratulate you on last night's kill," Scar opened.   
"You already did." Zira narrowed her eyes, squashing down her dangerous feelings. "Is it such a miracle that I am capable of hunting?"   
"It was a miracle that brought you to me." Scar licked his lips; he had never said anything like that before. Zira would think it foolish, but he had said it unthinkingly.   
"Scar -"   
"Zira -" they said together.   
"Speak."   
"No, you - your Majesty." 

Scar shifted from paw to paw. "Zira, I want you. But I want you of your own free will, not because I am the king and you my lioness. Will you have me?" 

Zira's ears went flat. Scar's words had filled her with joy and hope. But did he mean it? Was he another Mazoo, out to satisfy his selfish desires? And if she trusted herself to him, would she lose a part of herself? All her life she had been self-sufficient. Could she give up her independence to this dark king who made her feel so different? 

Her hesitation hit Scar as a physical blow. He turned his shoulder to her and began to pad away. 

"Wait." She crouched a little, looking up into his green eyes. Then she said something she had never confessed in all her years of loneliness and danger.   
"I'm frightened." 

The male walked slowly towards her, murmuring soothingly all the while. "Don't be scared, little one. It's only me. You know me well; we're friends. And now we are becoming something more." 

Scar's eyes filled with an urgent longing. For an instant he looked almost like Nuka pleading for his mother's love. Then he stepped forward, shaking his mane. He was in control. "Let us love," he said firmly, and his narrow head pushed Zira's flank so she tumbled to the ground. She lay straddled, her head arched back to see the king, her stomach and loins pressed against the earth. Then, for the first time in her life, Zira purred. 

He took hold of the scruff of her neck in his teeth, gently at first then harder, so she froze to the spot. His hot breath sounded harsh in her ears. Slowly Scar lowered himself on top of the lioness, _his_ lioness... 

Zira cringed away. "No!" 

Scar stopped what he was doing instantly, though his body still pinned the now-shivering female. 

"It won't be like Mazoo, not this time," Scar promised, though he could not be entirely sure how his performance would turn out.   
"You are an adult, I am an adult, we both know what we're doing, and...we love each other." 

Zira breathed slowly out. It was a sigh of completeness, as though she had been holding her breath all her life, waiting for this, and could now release it.   
"Yes, Scar. Yes!" Eyes gleaming, she snaked her head round and grabbed his mane in her teeth. She tugged and ripped, snarling, entangled in Scar as he joined himself to her. He too growled, and two sets of claws raked the ground. Together they endured full minutes of delicious, unbearable, wonderful pain. 

Lions are perceptive creatures. They learn much from a faint scent, from a mane disarrayed, from two sets of pawprints close together in the dust. So Scar and Zira's coupling was known almost as soon as it happened. The feeling in the pride was of relief. Scar had found a mate at last; perhaps now his great anger would abate, the anger that threatened to destroy him and his subjects. Sarabi saw and was happy. She was needed no longer. Mufasa's line would continue its interrupted journey to the stars through his brother, and Sarabi...Sarabi would cease her attempts to counsel and guide Scar, free to mourn her husband and son till death reunited the family. 

When her slim stomach began to expand, this time Zira knew what was happening and was unafraid. She would not bear her offspring alone in some wilderness, but at the centre of a pride. There would be midwives to help her at the birth, and she would be brought food while she was nursing. All these marvellous things, she had learned, a lioness with a pride could expect. The cubs would have abundant milk and a father to love and protect them, and perhaps, in the future, one of them would be a king... 

"Wash me, Sarabi!" Nuka demanded. He and Scar had been banished during Zira's confinement; the presence of a male lion can make a new mother nervous. "I wanna look my best for my new little brother or sister!" 

"You're more than old enough to clean yourself," the widow lioness said severely. "Besides, they'll be blind."   
"They'll be _blind_? How come?" asked Nuka, horrified.   
"Only for a few weeks, silly! Then their eyes will open." Seeing his disappointment, she drew the cub to her.   
"Here. They'll be able to _feel_ how nice and clean their big brother's fur is, anyway!" 

Sarabi helped Nuka with the difficult bits, and he sat down with his own tail clasped between his forepaws to groom the tip. He was in this undignified position when old Myana padded softly up, brimming over with the good news she carried. 

"Two cubs - a boy and a girl. She wants you, Nuka, and you, Sarabi, but most of all she wants the king."   
Nuka overbalanced and sprawled on his back.   
"Is Mother OK?" he coughed, spitting out dust.   
"Never better, sweetheart." Myana smiled at him and trotted off in search of Scar, whom she found pacing moodily at the tip of Pride Rock, the epitome of anxious fatherhood. 

Nuka grinned nervously up at Scar. "This is it, huh?"   
"It certainly is." The king smirked, as though at some private joke. He walked through the crowd of lionesses, who parted respectfully before the new father. Zira looked up at him, as drained as she had been on the day he first found her, but this time her gaze was happy and trusting. She gave a weary smile and mewed a greeting. Clutched in her paws were two tiny cubs: one tawny as her mother, one cocoa-dark with a tiny tuft of fur already present between his ears. They had arrived early, but no less welcome for it, and both appeared perfect in every detail. 

"Kovu, Vitani - meet your father," she said, her voice a soft purr. Scar's chest swelled. He wanted to roar his pride and happiness to the world; instead he rested his head against hers and purred in harmony with her, a rough, rumbling breath. 

"And your big brother! Coming through! Family here!" Nuka shoved his way to the fore. His eager expression quickly changed to one of horror as he got his first look at his chubby, wriggling siblings with their tight-lidded eyes.   
"_That's_ my new brother and sister?"   
"What's wrong, boy?" asked Scar.   
"Ewww! They look like...like..._termites!_" 

The lionesses fell about. Scar looked stern, as though Nuka's criticism of the cubs reflected on him personally. Then he saw that Zira was laughing too and he joined in, ruffling Nuka's scrappy mane affectionately. The newborn twins, surrounded by so much love and happy laughter, cuddled close to their mother and fell asleep. Zira took a last look around before she joined them in slumber. 

"I'm home," she murmured. 


	4. Storm Clouds Gather

Tall plants, once green and soft, stuck stiffly out of the dry earth. The waterhole had contracted with the drought and a ring of sticky black mud surrounded the shallow pool that remained. Nuka had slipped while getting a drink. His legs and chest were caked in slime, and he was crying. 

It was not the discomfort that bothered him, nor had he hurt himself in his tumble. But this incident seemed the final proof that everything, even nature itself, was against him. 

Nuka was learning what many a first-born child has learned: that a new baby needs a lot of looking after, and older siblings may suddenly have to fend for themselves. His mother seemed to have no time for anyone but Kovu and Vitani. The rest of the pride talked of little but Scar's progeny. Even Sarabi, his teacher and, he had thought, friend, was occupied with the new cubs. 

He had not minded when Zira told him that she and the king were now mates. He had grown used to sharing her with the rest of the pride after a lifetime of just her and him, and this to Nuka was just another instance of pride life - like when she went off hunting with the others and left him. Besides, his own standing rose greatly with the king's interest in his mother. The lionesses asked him for news of Scar's mood and Zira's pregnancy, and he felt an important figure. 

All this had changed with the birth of the cubs. Even with Scar around he had still had plenty of time with his mother. But the babies were there all the time, day and night. In the brief periods when they slept the exhausted Zira was snappy and short-tempered, nor would she leave them for longer than it took to get a drink of water. She had no time to take care of her older son - barely even to talk to him. Nuka was neglected, and he sulked. Then he found that nobody was taking any notice of his sulking, and he took himself off to be miserable alone. 

Personally Nuka thought the Termite Twins weren't worth making such a fuss about. His sister and brother were tiny and weak, eyes not yet open. They couldn't talk, or play, or clean themselves. As far as he was concerned they were nothing but two parasites, grubs that suckled from his mother the way fleas fed on Nuka. They disgusted him. It drove him wild that they were taking his share of love and attention, and the place at Zira's side that had been his alone. 

"Hehe. Heheheh." Nuka swivelled his head to see who was laughing at his predicament. It was a hyaena, the one Scar called Ed. He had been afraid of hyaenas since his arrival in the Pridelands, when only Scar's arrival had saved him and his mother from their attack. But Zira always told him not to show his fear - and besides, this one seemed harmless. 

Ed pointed to Nuka's chest. "You look like me!" he observed, cackling. 

The half-grown lion examined himself. It was not a flattering comparison, but Ed was right. His legs and tail were black with mud, which also spattered his hide. His greyish coat and sparse mane completed the effect. He was a hyaena! Unwillingly, he broke into a sheepish grin. 

"We friends then? Cos you look like me?" Ed's round yellow eyes bulged and his tongue lolled out. Nuka felt a moment's revulsion, then he shrugged. Why not? It wasn't like anyone else wanted to be his friend right now. 

"Sure we're friends, Ed," he told the hyaena. "So what do you wanna do?" 

Nuka found he enjoyed being friends with Ed. The hyaena, though fully grown, had the intelligence of a cub, and looked up to Nuka for his ability to make decisions and think of things. Clumsy, puny and lacking in common sense, Nuka had never experienced respect before. He felt as if he were a mother lion and Ed his baby, to be protected and cared for. He felt _big_. 

Sometimes they played the racing, chasing games that Nuka had been unable to enjoy in his early days, having no one to play with and needing always to conserve his energy. Sometimes they lay in the sun scratching at fleas and gnawing bones in companionable peace. Sometimes they fought and wrestled. They were of similar stature, the small lion and the large, gangling hyaena, and Nuka learned some tricks that could fell a bigger opponent using cunning instead of strength. 

Curiously it was Scar, not usually one to notice events in his pride, who observed how Nuka was spending most of his time. His role as father was at present not a large one; that would come later, when his children could walk and talk and he would teach them. So he was almost as out of things as Nuka. 

Since his first encounter with the cub he had been struck by the similarity to himself as a youngster. Though he had no blood-tie to Nuka he was protective of him as the property of Zira, and lately had grown fond of him in his own right. He did not wish to see Nuka make the same mistakes he had. Scar too had befriended hyaenas as a lonely adolescent, and look what it had got him: a pack of mangy layabouts who grew fat on the labour of his lionesses. 

He took Nuka aside one day when Ed was with his own kind, engaged in some foul secret project. 

"I don't want you spending time with hyaenas," he told the cub plainly.   
"It's just one hyaena." Nuka was merely being honest, but Scar interpreted it as cheekiness.   
"I don't care if it's one or a thousand. Stay _away_, Nuka."   
Nuka's face furrowed. "But _you_ hang out with them almost all the time!"   
"I am the king!" It was almost a growl; the closest Scar had come in weeks to anger. "A king does as he pleases!"   
"Well, I'm the son of a prince!" Nuka drew himself up, trying his best to look dignified. "I might be going to inherit a kingdom some day!"   
"How fascinating," drawled Scar, his eyes hooded. "Let me tell you something, cub. Your brother Kovu is the son of a king, and _he_ is going to inherit _my_ kingdom." 

Nuka's mouth fell open and he gawped in horror at Scar. Tail between his legs, he ran from Pride Rock so fast that his hindlegs overtook the fore and he somersaulted out of sight. 

He was never the brightest of cubs, but it had dawned on Nuka growing up that most of the animals he saw had two parents. He pestered his mother to tell him who his father was and why he wasn't with them, and in the end she had told him the truth - up to a point. 

She said that Nuka was the first-born son of a future king. Therefore the kingdom was his by rights, but she and he had been exiled before he was even born to prevent his taking it. She exaggerated the delights of the land where she grew up: the warmth of the sun, the plentiful food. All this was Nuka's, and someday when he was big and strong they would go back and claim it. 

For a small and insignificant lion, this tale was rich meat. Nuka held on to it for comfort whenever he felt lonely or sad. At Pride Rock he noticed that there were no other boy cubs around. Sarabi told him she had a son who had died. Then the king started going with his mother, which surely made him Nuka's father, kind of. Therefore Nuka had nursed the hope of being made Scar's heir. And now the Termites had ruined everything. Again! Boy, for such little creatures they sure caused a lot of trouble. Yes - little, helpless creatures...Nuka's eyes glowed red. 

Scar looked guiltily after Nuka, already regretting his spiteful retort. What kind of parent was he going to make if he lost his temper so easily? He had estranged Nuka and made him run away. Would Kovu and Vitani grow up afraid of their own father? Zira might raise her paw to Nuka, but her spankings were always calculated; perhaps not deserved, but Zira clearly believed them necessary. Scar was more disposed to hit out in anger and regret it later. 

His thoughts turned unwillingly to Simba, as they often had since the birth of his own children. He knew how he would feel if anything happened to them, and he looked at Sarabi with new respect for her courage and dignity. 

He had not been a good uncle to Simba. He had never felt a bond with the bouncy golden cub, although his own brother had sired him. It was not just that Simba's birth had robbed him of his position as Mufasa's next-in-line; Scar had always thought his older brother would outlive him. Scar simply had no affection for the prince. Had he liked Simba, even a little, he might not have sent him to his death. But he had disliked cubs when he was one himself, and had not changed in adulthood. Children were noisy, mischievous and thoroughly unpredictable. They got on his nerves. 

Anxiety welled up in Scar. He suddenly longed to see his cubs; partly to make sure they were all right and had not been somehow harmed as punishment for his own wickedness, but mostly to reassure himself that he loved them and they were part of him. 

Nuka wanted to hide himself. He ran to the very edge of the Pridelands, the border country where jackals roamed and the heavy leopard prowled. A lone youngster was not safe here; Scar and Sarabi had drilled that into him over and over. Finding a thorn bush, he squeezed himself under the prickles and lay crouched in its hollow centre. 

The sun sank and the air grew chilly. Night noises of birds and small mammals surrounded Nuka. A mouse ran right across his paws, and the young lion smothered a shriek of alarm. He was reminded of his early days, when Zira left him to go hunting and Nuka lay stone-still for hours of terror, every rustle of the grass bringing visions of a savage monster bent on eating him up. 

He brooded. Kovu and Vitani - his brother and sister. Yet he didn't feel as if they were anything to do with him. It was as if they had arrived from another world and taken over everyone's lives. Sure, they made his mother happy, but she had been happy before with just Nuka and she could be again. Scar could find another candidate for prince, and he wouldn't have far to look. It would be best for everyone concerned if the cubs were disposed of. They were barely aware of being alive; they would know nothing of their lives' ending. And who knew what pain and sorrow waited for them later if they lived to grow up? At the end of all his thinking, Nuka had convinced himself that he would be doing everyone a favour by killing his young siblings. 

It seemed to Nuka that he had been lying there for hours. He was bored, hungry and stiff with cold and lack of movement. Had no one even noticed he was missing? He gave a sigh of self-pity and dragged himself out. His rumbling belly was driving him home. But first he would visit the hyaenas. 

"Nuka, there you are!" Zira lay just within the sleeping-den, the babies securely within her grasp. 

"Oh, hi - Mother." It was so different from Nuka's usual eager greeting that Zira frowned. "Are you hungry, darling? You missed the kill, but the stomach is left." Nuka wrinkled his nose and shook his head at the idea of eating a skin sack full of half-digested vegetables. 

"Very well. Nuka, would you look after your brother and sister for a little while? It feels like months since I've taken a walk. I need to stretch my legs." 

Zira was surprised to see Nuka agree so cheerfully to her suggestion, not knowing that it fitted perfectly with his plan. Misinterpreting, she smiled. "Yes, it's a big responsibility. But you're almost an adult, and I trust you. Just get one of the lionesses if they wake and cry." She nuzzled her eldest son affectionately, the first such gesture she had made in many days. Nuka felt a gnawing of guilt in his bowels as she padded away, but dismissed it as the pain of hunger. 

He curled around the smaller cubs in awkward imitation of his mother. The hyaenas would be here as soon as they saw Zira pass the gnarled tree root. All Nuka had to do was keep the babies quiet so nobody came to see what was wrong. 

Ed's blunt head poked around the den entrance, teeth shining in a crooked grin. His sister Shenzi and her mate, Banzai, slunk in behind him. They made strange shadows with their odd, hump-backed shape. The fur on baby Vitani's back stood up as they entered, but she did not wake. 

"OK, cubby. Hand 'em over." Shenzi licked her lips. "And if you don't swear by sky and earth that jackals took them, we'll get you too." 

Banzai nodded rapidly. "We don't want to break Scar's truce. Pride Rock is a good gig. But young Ed's took a shine to you, and cub is tender. So a share of your meat for three moons and we're all square, capeesh?" 

Kovu was sleeping against Nuka's belly, snoring a little. Nuka angled his head towards the tiny creature, lips drawn away from his teeth. "You first, little prince," he growled. 

The adolescent paused for a long while and examined his brother. He told himself he was savouring the joy of what he was about to do, but in truth he was scared and sad. When he had killed game it had happened all in a rush - the sighting, the run, the kill and the sweet, hot meat in his hungry mouth. Prey ran and hid, and had to be outsmarted. This cold-blooded business was hard for him to stomach. 

"Come on, Nuka. You want to be king or not?" he told himself, chewing agitatedly on his forepaw as he did in moments of stress. Just then, Kovu rolled over onto his back with a small sigh, exposing his vulnerable underside. As Nuka leaned in, the little brown cub opened one eye a crack for the very first time. 

Nuka stopped, taken aback by the minute slit of green which had suddenly appeared on Kovu's face. He was so used to the blind, shut lids of his siblings that he couldn't think what it was. 

Kovu squeezed his eye shut, and this time opened both. He blinked, bringing his hazy world into focus, and gazed in amazement at his brother. Muscles that had not come into play before began to work, and a smile spread inexpertly across the small muzzle. Suddenly Nuka was looking at a fellow lion instead of a faceless grub. 

Nuka marvelled. He felt proud that this moment had happened when he was looking after his brother. Pictures unfolded across his mind: the cubs' first steps, their first words. Perhaps one such word would be 'Nuka', because he would be there with them always, teaching and guiding. Their big brother. They would treat him the way Ed did, with awe and affection. But then Kovu would grow up and be king, while Nuka would grow up to be a nothing...Oh, it was hard! 

"Cubs, yes? Dinner?" Ed's mouth was hanging open and a strand of saliva drooled slowly to the floor. Nuka shuddered and made up his mind. "No. Not today, Ed. Sorry, guys - dinner's off." 

Ed looked disappointed, but he obeyed Nuka as always. "Okay Nukie," he said in docile tones, and turned away. But Shenzi grabbed his scruff. "Not so fast, Ed." She glared at Nuka and took a step forward. "So we've been wasting our time, hmm? We don't like to do that, Banzai and me." 

"Maybe it was a set-up?" Banzai's black muzzle twisted in a scowl. "He brings us here, the lions catch us stealing cubs and kill us. Huh?" 

Nuka shook his head. "No! No...I just...changed my mind, that's all." He looked at the bundles of fur at his paws. They were his kin, and whatever he felt about them he could not let these murderous animals kill them. He stood over the twins as his mother had protected him from the same beasts months before, and gave a squeaky roar. 

Shenzi and Banzai shared a glance and snickered. "Nice try, kid. Give them up and maybe we'll let you live." 

Ed was looking at the baby lions. He gave his half-mad chuckle, and fixed one wandering eye on Nuka. He pointed. "Little Nukas, look!" 

His friend nodded. "Yes, Ed. They're my brother and sister. Like Shenzi's your sister, yeah?" 

"Yeah! Shenzi, leave...please, come?" He tugged at her foreleg. Shenzi nosed forward a few paces, her expression wicked. "Well, well, well, Nuka. Had a change of heart? Too late, alas, toooo _late_." She prepared to spring, and Nuka crouched back against the cave wall in terror of her powerful, crushing jaws. 

At the moment of her leaping a wild snarl from behind startled the hyaena so she twisted in her jump and skittered to one side, turning to face this new enemy. Scar and Zira stood side-by-side in the den entrance, their expressions of fury identical. 

"It was him!" Banzai sputtered, gesturing at the cowering Nuka. "He was gonna kill the cubs!" 

"And you? You were going to help him, were you?" Scar took a stiff step forward, green eyes glowing. 

"Yes! No! Uh..." Banzai skipped backwards into Shenzi, who glowered at him and took over. 

"You see, boss, it's like this. We heard the little ones were sick, and we were gonna take them away so they couldn't make you other lions ill too. That's what we do. We're scavengers!"   
"Scavengers, yeah!" Ed put in. 

Zira shot to the back of the cave, scattering the three hyaenas and knocking Nuka to one side as if she hadn't even seen him. She gathered up Kovu and Vitani, purring shakily and smelling them all over. 

Scar took in the scene. He could see now that both infants were unharmed, and he could think more calmly. He could see also the guilt and terror painted on the face of his stepson.   
"What about you, Nuka?" he asked, and the quietness of his voice merely made it more deadly. "What have you to say?" 

Nuka looked at his paws. He was deeply ashamed of what he had done, or almost done, and far too afraid to admit it. If he made such a confession, his mother and the King, the two most important beings in his life, would disown him, perhaps even kill him. But equally he did not want to lie and condemn his friend Ed, who had after all come here at his wish. So he said nothing, and the silence grew heavy as everyone watched him and waited to hear what he would say. 

The tension was broken by Scar. "Run away, Nuka," he hissed. "Out of my sight. And you three also." His forepaw trembled as though he longed to slash someone to the bone. The hyaenas fell over each other in their haste to escape, but Nuka stayed still. Slowly he raised his eyes to meet the king's. Scar studied him calmly, as if seeing right inside Nuka to his most secret thoughts and feelings. At last he gave a barely perceptible nod and said something that scared Nuka almost out of his wits. 

"_I know you_." 

Nuka fled, gone from the cave in a single bound and out of sight.   
"Nuka! _Nuka_!" his mother called after him, eyes straining into the dark. But he was gone. 

Zira rounded on Scar. "How could you believe those filthy dogs? How could you think Nuka would do such a thing to his own brother and sister?" Her paw slapped his cheek. "Get out!" 

Scar retreated backwards, cringing. Tears sprang to his eyes, but not from the sting of the hit. 

"Because I did," he muttered. 

"_What_?" And suddenly he was stretched on the cave floor sobbing like a baby, while Zira stood still not knowing what to do. 

"Simba...Simba...I killed him, Zira," moaned Scar, rocking himself from side to side and running his paws down his face. The lioness crept to his side and touched his shoulder.   
"Sarabi's son? That Simba?"   
"Yes! My nephew! And his father, my own brother! I killed Mufasa!"   
Zira bent to his ear and whispered softly "Tell me." 

Scar told what he had done, and it was sweet relief. As a sore bursts and the poisoned matter drains from the wound, so Scar confessed, and he shook and cried as the infection left him. At the end he felt empty inside, purged. Though his eyes when he looked at Zira were infinitely sad, a darkness was gone from them. 

"You're the only one who knows," he said, and she felt a strange pride amongst the horror of his revelation. She crept close and licked his forehead, even daring to run her tongue along the groove of his scar. 

Scar gave a last shudder and lay still, head on paws. "You don't know what it's like to carry a secret like that," he said. "It's like carrying a rock around in your belly, day and night." 

"I do, Scar. I do," Zira nuzzled him close, her heart beating fast and light. She wanted there to be no secrets any more between them. Still clutching her cubs tightly, in the tenderness of the moment she blurted out: 

"You're not their father." 

* * *

What will happen to Nuka - and the hyaenas? Can Scar and Zira's relationship survive? And just who _is_ Kovu's father? Stay tuned for the final episode, coming soon to a savannah near you! 


	5. History Repeating

Four days had passed since Zira's confession, in which time the lovers had barely spoken to each other. They slept apart, at opposite ends of the cave. Occasionally one sneaked a glance at the other, quickly hiding their eyes when detected. Zira crooned over her twins; Scar could not tell whether she was deliberately provoking him or pleading with him to love them again. He would not ask - his pride prevented him. Nuka was still missing. Sarabi said she had seen him with the hyaena pack, but search and call as Zira might, he did not come to her. 

Scar's first, fatal reaction to the news had been anger. Blind rage took him; he could hardly see, and he roared hugely, instinctively, baring claws and teeth. The cubs trembled, and Zira stood protectively over them. When the mist cleared, he could see from her face that she had thought he was going to kill all three of them. A flood of shame and grief washed over the king. 

"Tell me it isn't true," he whispered, cowering. But the damage had been done. Distrust showed in Zira's eyes, and she backed slowly away. "I can't," she said flatly. "It is true." 

She told him everything. How, the very day before Scar came into her life, a black-maned rogue had come upon her and forced her to have him. She was too weak to resist, and besides the male had threatened to kill Nuka if she refused his advances. She had not told Scar, because the incident filled her with shame and she did not want to reveal how feeble she had been, allowing herself to be defiled in such a way. Indeed, she could hardly bear to think about it herself. By the time she was stronger she was in love with Scar, and was afraid to mention her rape by the other male in case he rejected her. The emotionless manner in which she told her tale was to keep her from tears, but to Scar it seemed as though she was taunting him. 

Guilt was added to the king's feelings. He knew that what had happened was not Zira's fault. He knew that he should feel terribly sorry for her. He should promise to rear the cubs as his own son and daughter. He should hold her and nuzzle her and reassure her. Yet he could not. 

Scar remembered that the cubs had arrived before they were due, yet had been born big and healthy. It was true; they were not his. Fancy his thinking that fate would allow him to be a happy father! He gave a low grunt at this blow. It seemed to Scar that all his life he had been dealt misfortunes, from the moment he came into the world too late, when his larger, stronger brother had already been born and named heir to the throne of Pride Rock. He wanted to whine like Nuka that it wasn't _fair_. Instead he stalked silently to the back of the cave and lay down, drowning in his misery. 

Nuka ran, for the second time that day. He was running from, not to, and had no idea in his head except to get away from Scar. That glance had said it all - the king was a magic lion who could see inside Nuka's head, and expose all the wicked thoughts that lurked there. 

He had not gone far before he found Ed. The clumsy hyaena had caught his paw in a mousehole and, rather than freeing himself, was running madly in a circle and yelping with terror. The sight of someone in a worse state than himself had a calming effect on Nuka, and he stopped. "Hey Ed," he said gently, once again the big brother. "Scar's not coming. Calm down - and hold still." Ed obeyed, though he shivered as he stood. Nuka released his paw from its trap, a little swollen from Ed's frantic pulling. 

"We're still friends, aren't we?" Nuka asked. His mother and Scar had turned against him, and he could not bear the thought of being all alone. Ed moved his head solemnly, once up, once down. "Come on then Ed, old friend. I'll take you home." 

The hyaena was so scared and confused that he hardly seemed to know which way was up, and Nuka had to guide him to the dens a little way off Pride Rock where the hyaenas had made their home after the migration from the Elephant Graveyard. Shenzi and Banzai were just visible in the gloom, standing guard. Nuka heard a frightened yell of "Lion!" and then an "Aww, it's only _him_." 

Shenzi dashed out, nuzzling and licking her brother. "Ed - we thought he'd eaten you!" Ed pushed her away, his lower jaw stuck out. "You left me," he accused. "Nukie saved me!" 

"Is that so?" Banzai walked stiff-legged towards them, bridling at Nuka. "You made us look pretty bad back there. Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you right now, runt." 

"Banzai - he rescued Ed. And they're _friends_." She turned an almost loving look on the pair; bully him though she did, the tough female had a soft spot for her simple brother. 

Nuka lay flat, his half-grown mane in a tangle and his eyes enormous. "Can I stay with you guys?" he pleaded. "I'm so scared." Shenzi and Banzai looked at each other doubtfully, while Ed twirled his stumpy tail and whined with eagerness. 

"Well, OK." Banzai said at last. "But you get to bunk with Ed." 

"I can leave, you know." Zira glared at her mate, daring him to contradict her. Hostile as she was, Scar was cheered slightly by her choosing to speak to him at all. 

"You can't. Not now." He looked to the twins, acknowledging their presence for the first time since their paternity was revealed. "You can't carry two cubs away with you, and you need the lionesses to provide enough food for the three of you to survive." The fiercely independent lioness glowered as she tried not to accept the truth. Though she had been part of a pride for several months, she still wanted everyone to know that she could make it on her own. 

"Perhaps it's best if _I_ leave." The King rose and walked slowly to the cave entrance. He could not stand to be here any more. Feeling so stiff and awkward with Zira in the very den where they had snuggled and embraced was torture to him. He itched and burned with restless frustation. And if going away meant deserting his pride - well, they had made it clear for a long time that he was not doing his royal duty. Let them manage without him for a while. A day, or a week perhaps. He and Zira were getting nowhere while they were lumped together like this. A time apart might heal the rift between them, as tempers cooled and a familiar presence was missed. 

"Will you come back?" Zira asked suddenly, cublike.   
"Yes. Will you be here when I do?" Scar was afraid to leave her alone, but he could not stay. She looked at him coldly, and merely shrugged. As he crossed the threshold she was not even looking at him but was washing the inside of Kovu's ear. Scar knew this because he sneaked a glance over his shoulder to check. 

Nuka was in the sleeping-den when Scar arrived. He would rather have been outside - the hyaenas were none too clean or tidy in their habits - but he did not want to be seen. So he adopted the creeping nocturnal life of the pack, and relied on food they brought him rather than go to the lions for his share. He was dozing uncomfortably, his head on a heap of old bones, and was startled to hear the voice of his recent nightmares asking for him by name. 

Shenzi came crawling down to him, eyes mad as Ed's with alarm. "Scar wants you," she said. "Stay here. He can't reach you." She had grown fond of the lanky, untidy lad; he was like another younger brother. Ed nodded mutely, pressing himself against Nuka's side. But the lion shook his head. 

"No, I'm going. If you've been bad, and you put off being punished, it's only worse in the end when you get it." The few times he had dared to run from an angry Zira had taught him this lesson. Trembling, he pushed himself through the narrow entrance that was easy for a hyaena to negotiate but hard for a growing lion, and stepped blinking into the afternoon. 

"Uh...hi there." Nuka shuffled his paws. Scar looked sad, he thought. In truth, Scar was again seeing himself in the scared, unhappy adolescent. He had come here for a purpose. If he was to be estranged from Zira, he could at least try to make peace with her son. It had dawned on him as he paced his territory that this whole mess would never have come about if he had not snapped at Nuka and dashed his hopes of ruling the kingdom. 

His expression remained inscrutable, the lazy lids drooping over his green eyes.   
"Let's take a walk, Nuka," he said, and it was a command. Nuka fell in step beside him, wondering. It was several minutes before he plucked up the courage to ask where they were going. 

"First we are going to the waterhole, where you will take a bath." Scar wrinkled his nose. "As my nephew would have said, you're _stinky_!" 

Nuka gave a nervous little laugh. "Living with hyaenas does that, I guess. Heh. Ehem." Was he supposed to mention the hyaenas? Would that make it worse? And when was he going to be punished? He jumped with nerves, and studied Scar's every little movement with wary dread. 

After Nuka's wash they walked together almost to the edge of the desert, Nuka skipping every few steps to keep up with the adult's longer stride. At last they halted beside a rushing river that drowned out all sounds but the nearest. Here Scar sat on his haunches and Nuka nervously crouched before him, looking up into his closed face. 

"Let me tell you a story," the king began. He seemed uncomfortable seated, and, standing, began to pace to and fro. Nuka's head swivelled as he kept his eyes fixed on Scar. 

"Once there was a lion. His father was a king and he and his brother were princes. But because his brother was older, he would be the one to rule when their father was gone. 

"Now, this lion had brains, but he wasn't very strong. For a time he was content to help and advise his brother as he ran the pride. Then his brother had a son." 

Scar paused and his green eyes flicked briefly to the sky. When he looked back at Nuka they seemed unfocused, as though he were seeing something beyond the adolescent. He swished his tail, once. 

"Sir?" Nuka whispered timidly. Scar rounded on him, pressing his face close to the youngster's. 

"The lion was jealous! Before, if his brother had died he would have taken over the kingdom! Now there was a new prince and he would be pushed into the shadows and ignored!" Scar's white teeth were visible with every word he spoke. The analogy was not lost on Nuka, who trembled and hung his head. 

"What did the lion do, you ask?" Scar hinted, eyeballing Nuka with bristling mane. 

"Wh-what?" 

"He tricked his brother and his nephew, leading them into a trap. He watched his brother die in agony and lied to his son so he ran away to his death. He killed his brother, and his brother's child." 

"Was he king then?" Nuka asked. The next second he would have bitten his tongue off if it could have taken his question back. 

"Yes, Nuka, he was king!" roared Scar. "But he was tortured every day by the memory of what he had done. A murderer's existence is a living hell, Nuka. That is what you have escaped." His paw shoved Nuka in the chest with surprising strength, bowling him over. For minutes he lay where he had fallen, his flanks heaving. Nuka was not a particularly perceptive lion, but another question rose in his brain. 

"Scar? Was that lion...was it y-" 

Scar's paw, claws sheathed and gentle this time, clapped over Nuka's mouth. 

"Hush," said the king. He turned his shoulder and began to walk away. 

Nuka sat still, his brow wrinkled. All he really knew was that he had hovered on the brink of doing something terrible, something that would have stayed with him all his life. And Scar had saved the situation. Nor had he given Nuka the punishment he deserved. The King seemed to swell to the stature of a god at that moment, although in fact he stooped sadly as he walked. Nuka bounded after his leader in a frenzy of hero-worship. 

"Where're you going?" he asked, pattering alongside the bigger lion.   
"Away." In truth, Scar hardly knew. He was a solitary animal, ill suited to being at the centre of a pride, and he wanted only to be alone. Perhaps he would wander into the desert, the direction Simba had taken when the hyaenas pursued him, and live as a rogue - or die as one. 

"Why? Come back to Mother with me. Please." Nuka still persisted, though Scar had picked up the pace in an effort to shake him off. At last the king stopped. "Your mother and I had an argument," he said quietly. "I don't think she'll want me back." 

Nuka raised his eyebrows at this news, considering it. At last he brightened. "Well, she doesn't like me any more either. So I'll come with you, huh?" 

In truth, Scar had never frightened him the way his mother did. She was calculating, striking hours after you thought you'd got away with a crime, and her tongue was harsher than her paw. 

Scar winced. "Nuka, no! Please go home."   
"Your Majesty...Scar? I want to be with you. You're the closest I've ever had to a father. I love you." He said it as if he expected to be hit, gabbling the words together. 

Scar stared at him, frankly astonished. Really, the child was impossible. Nuka loved him? He who had been so cruel and thoughtless? He who had probably put the idea of murder into the cub's head in the first place? An unwilling smile hiked up his muzzle, and he awkwardly ruffled the sparse mane between his step-son's ears. His black mood dispersed as suddenly as it had come upon him, and he straightened his shoulders. What had he been thinking of? He was the King. Back at Pride Rock he had a bunch of lionesses to lick into shape and a mate who, he was sure, loved him. They had tried to beat him down, those shadowy forces that brought depression and despair upon him, but they had not won. They would not win, never. 

"All right, Nuka," he said shortly. "Let's go home." 

Scar was the King, and every part of Pride Rock was his domain. Yet he hesitated on the threshold of the birthing den. 

"Scar!" Zira's voice betrayed happiness at seeing him, but the next moment her eyes had narrowed and she had tucked her babies protectively under her forelegs. 

Her mate lowered his body, humbling himself before her. Yet he smiled. "I brought you something," he said, standing aside to let Nuka through. 

It was the longest the big cub had ever spent apart from his mother. He threw himself upon her, licking and nuzzling. She protested and tried to cuff him away, but soon gave up and began grooming his unkempt fur. 

"Thanks for bringing him back," she said awkwardly to Scar. His gaze dropped away, to the two cubs on the floor. They seemed to grow hourly. It was as if Scar was seeing them for the first time - he had not touched them for almost a week, and suddenly he longed to. He was surprised at himself. Was paternal instinct rising in him, even though he was not their father? Was this how Mufasa had felt when Sarabi presented him with their child? 

Kovu, who was growing rapidly into a bold, curious cub, stuck his head over his mother's leg and frankly stared. For the second time that day Scar felt an unbidden smile cross his face. In a soft, low voice, the voice he had used to comfort Zira the day he took her for his mate, he called to the little brown creature: 

"Kovu. Come...come to daddy." 

Zira's eyes opened wide and her paw curled reflexively around her son. Then she released him and watched. The cub hesitated, blinking up at the vastness of his cave world. With tiny wobbling steps he tottered over to Scar - a great distance for his small paws to travel. Filled with determination, he ran the last few feet before falling against the lion's foot. 

The teeth that had gleamed in a grin when Mufasa fell to his death took Kovu's scruff and lifted him. The cub made a cooing sound of delight and interest as Scar turned his head and placed him between his crooked shoulder blades. He bounced gently upon his pads, rocking his passenger. Walking to the entrance, he gave Kovu his first glimpse of the outside. Kovu's eyes screwed up at the touch of sunlight and he gasped, tightening his new claws in Scar's back. 

A phrase came into Scar's mind: _Everything the light touches is our kingdom._ He remembered his father Ahadi saying it to Mufasa, as the young Taka sat neglected in the shadows. He turned. 

"This is my son and heir," he said. "On the day of the new moon's rising he will be presented before the entire kingdom. Zazu will spread the word." 

"Presented?" Zira frowned. Scar trotted over, deposited Kovu at her paws and kissed her ears. 

"I forgot you were an outsider. When the king has a son, he is held up at the tip of Pride Rock before all the animals." There were precious few animals around at the moment, Scar remembered. He flicked the angry thought aside. "Rafiki, our shaman, performs a ritual to seal the ceremony. Kovu will be a prince." 

"Me, too!" 

Scar jumped. Kovu's sister, Vitani, was peeking at him and had spoken. First Nuka and now Vitani - would Kovu ever be safe from his siblings? He looked hard at the blue-eyed cub. He could not bear the thought of her growing up as he had done, in the shadow of a dominant brother. It might even be kinder to dispose of her now, as Nuka had thought to do... 

As he watched, however, Vitani hit Kovu hard on the nose and pounced on him. Thoughtfully, Scar rubbed his bearded chin. 

"Vitani, come here."   
"Shan't." 

Scar raised an eyebrow and marched over to the cub. He picked her up, less gently than he had her brother, and swung her in turn onto his back. 

"Now, Vitani. Boys are princes and kings. Girls are princesses and queens. You have to look after your brother and help him as much as you can. Be his friend, play with him, help him learn what it means to be a king. Then, one day, you will be at his side to help him rule. Will you do that?" 

"I guess." Vitani stalked up Scar's neck to perch on his head, her sharp little claws making him wince. He removed her with his paw. 

"I see you won't have any trouble making Kovu toe the line." _And I will be a better father than Ahadi_, Scar thought. _I won't neglect you, Vitani, my lover's daughter. I see Zira's spirit in your eyes already._

He dropped the sassy lioness cub at her mother's side and turned again to Kovu, one black claw lifting the curl of dark fur that fell across his forehead. He looked into the startling green eyes that anyone who knew no different would believe inherited from him. 

"Some day in the future, you will be a king." 

Zira looked proud and happy. Vitani pouted, but changed it to a grin. Even Nuka looked pleased, and smiled at his little brother as though he himself had conferred the honour upon him. Only Kovu didn't seem affected by Scar's speech. He was busy patting at a bug that crawled across the cave floor. 


	6. Waiting for the Storm

The days leading up to Kovu's presentation were windless, close and stifling - the weather that precedes a thunderstorm. Scar was restless and irritable. The heat made his head ache and gave him a sense of impending disaster that he could not shake off. He wished the ceremony could be brought forward, but ritual and precedent were an essential part of the process. The new heir had to be presented with the new moon, to ensure luck and success for the future king and a long reign.

Scar hissed gently; much good it had done Simba, whose ceremony had been conducted faultlessly under beneficent omens. But it would please the pride. The lionesses were upset by Scar's innovations? Here he was reinstating one of the oldest rituals of the Pridelands.

Scar had not the wisdom of Mufasa, who knew everything's proper place in the world. But he recognised the rules a king must follow if he is not to be toppled by an angry pride. Even the mightiest must obey the system, just as the sun and stars turn in their appointed path.

Once the words of the ceremony had been spoken and the sacred fruit smeared upon the cub's forehead, then he would become the true heir, bound by an ancient rite that could not be undone. And Scar's name would live forever.

He no longer cared that Kovu was not his flesh and blood. His flesh was weak - let it perish! His blood was the blood of Ahadi and Mufasa - let their strain die out forever! But his mind - ah, his cunning, his way with words, all his tricks, these he would pass on to the boy, making him his. He would mould and shape Kovu until the cub was more his own creation than if he had indeed sired him. He could not wait to begin.

Zira, too, was restless and impatient. Coming from outside the pride, she knew little of their tribal ways and cared less. Like Scar, she wanted the presentation safely over. She too was filled with foreboding, for in her short, unhappy life she had come always to expect the worst and to distrust hope and the offer of security.

Scar brought Rafiki to her. The baboon came unwillingly; he had not forgotten the vision that had staggered him when he first caught sight of the lioness and her cub. Were the current drought and famine the danger he had foreseen? He thought not; drought and famine he had seen and endured before. The presentiment Zira carried with her was of lion fighting lion, clash of claws and bloody violence. The headache swelled in his temples again as he approached her.

"I'm not letting that vermin touch my cubs!" Zira gathered Vitani and Kovu to her, insulted. "It's not clean!"

Like a child, Rafiki spread his pink palms out for inspection, smiling to show he took no offence.

"It is necessary, Zira," Scar said. "He is our shaman and the pride's rituals are in his hands."

"You're the king! Why can't you stop these ridiculous rituals?"

"Some things are stronger than a king's might," he replied in a purring growl. It was the phrase Ahadi had used to explain why only one of his sons could rule the pride. Father, oh father, look at me now!

Rafiki had always come and gone as he pleased. In the days of Scar's reign it was noticeable that he was gone more often than he stayed, though he always seemed to turn up if anyone was sick or troubled. On this occasion he had reappeared in Pride bounds just in time to receive Scar's summons. He had met the news of the King's heir impassively, his old face displaying no emotion. He did not have to obey Scar, who had demanded of him what Mufasa had humbly asked as a favour; he could simply walk away. Let Scar find someone else to perform his leonine ritual. But he was bound closely to Mufasa's family and wanted to see this story to its end; perhaps to play a part in it.

He looked at the brown cub. The constriction around his head eased a little, and he gave a small sigh of relief. Kovu came to him immediately despite his mother's growls, rubbing his head against the monkey's hands. For his part, Rafiki scratched between the soft ears and under the fuzzy chin.

"Hello, little one," he said. The wide baby eyes looked into his own, sunken in his wrinkled face. Rafiki felt a sensation like an electric shock pass into his fingers from the cub's fur, and he knew that here was a piece of the puzzle: Kovu was involved in the danger that Zira had brought with her to the pride, bound up in it intricately. He squinted, trying to get a better picture of the future. For a moment it seemed as if a pendulum swung above Kovu's head, a weighted string like the one the monkey used for divining water underground; Scar's heir stood balanced on the edge of twin destinies. Rafiki's bony finger stroked the quiff between the cub's ears.

"We must keep an eye on you, my boy," he said. Too swiftly for Kovu to feel pain, or for his watchful mother even to notice, Rafiki plucked a few hairs from Kovu's crown and concealed them in his palm. Bowing to Zira and Scar, he retreated from their presence and ambled away to his tree.

From now until the presentation he would be busy reading the omens of earth and sky, gathering ingredients and preparing the sacred ointment. As Scar had done, he pondered the signs that he had seen at the time of Simba's ceremony. He had predicted difficult times for the prince, certainly, though keeping his own counsel about them so as not to alarm Mufasa. But he had also foreseen a long and happy reign. How could he have been so wrong? Maybe he was getting old. In his mind he compared dark Kovu to golden Simba, and his expressive lips turned down.

As he thought of Simba the wind shifted minutely, suddenly undercut with a cool draught. Rafiki lifted his shaggy head, and his hand darted out to capture an airborne particle of fluff or plant matter. It touched Kovu's hair, still lying in his palm, and a piece of amazing knowledge was conveyed from the fragment to Rafiki's brain.

"Simba?" he breathed.

Simba! What would happen now?

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_A/N: I'd like to thank the talented and lovely **Jurious**, without whose gentle poking I might never have got on with these final chapters.]_


	7. Stranger in the Pridelands

The sun seemed to hang motionless in the sky, enormous and ominous, hovering fatly above a bed of violent pink clouds. Lionesses lay with their tongues out, longing for the crimson orb to set and bring the cool of night. Every breath they took felt hot and dry in the mouth. The air spoke of storm, but the thunderheads would not come and the weather refused to break.

Relief would come with the dawn; a precious hour or so of gentle breeze, when a thirsty tongue might find a little moisture on a dew-wet stone. In that hour, when the Great Kings retreated before the new beginning and the sun turned the peak of Pride Rock lion-gold, while the new moon still grazed the distant mountains, the heir to the throne would be presented to his future subjects.

This would be a hollow ceremony, a mocking travesty of Simba's solemn presentation. The lush, fertile plains were dry and cracked, and no longer teemed with every kind of life. Where herds and flocks without number had stood watching the presentation of Mufasa's child - stately giraffe, curious meerkat, lumbering hippo and fierce rhinoceros, tiny Thompson's gazelle and huge elephant - there were only the gangs of hyaenas lolling yellow-eyed and surly in the heat.

"I hope Rafiki drops the little rat and he falls all the way to the bottom. Bounce, bounce, bounce."

Sarafina, mother of Nala, was the speaker. Since her daughter fled the pride she had become deeply bitter. She had no idea whether Nala was alive or dead, and to those who did not know her well she seemed not to care. Sarabi, her closest friend, knew better, but she still reproached the other lioness.

"No cub deserves to die," she said, and though years had passed since Simba was taken from her, grief was fresh in her face. Sarafina hung her head.

"Kovu is a dear, sweet little thing," Sarabi continued, managing to smile.   
"But he is Scar's son."   
"Mufasa was Scar's brother, and have you ever known two lions more different? Kovu doesn't have to be a second Scar. I will help him all I can to grow up wise and kind - as if he were my own boy."

There was a hungry look in the queen's eyes, and Sarafina saw that she longed for Kovu. Maybe Sarabi was right; maybe the boy could be brought up a proper king. Sarafina had watched her with Nuka, and if anyone could change a cub's nature it was this caring old widow. But by the time Kovu was grown and Scar gone it could be too late for the pride. Sarafina's tongue peeked from between her teeth.

"I'm thirsty," she complained.   
"Then go get a drink."   
"Too hot."

Sarabi gently cuffed her friend with a forepaw. "You're never satisfied, are you? Be quiet and watch the sunset."

As Sarabi turned her head upwards to the reddened sky, Sarafina marvelled at her. How was it that she never seemed to lose hope?

Scar was seething with anger. Rafiki was missing! He had not been seen since the day the king informed him that Kovu was to be presented as the new prince. That meddling, wily ape! Scar had always detested him; the old baboon seemed always to be laughing at some secret joke, and it drove the black-maned lion half wild.

"The moment the ceremony is over I'll break his scrawny neck," he threatened.

"What if he doesn't come back?" Zira asked wearily. She was tired of the subject and wanted all this over with.

"Then I shall present Kovu myself!" roared Scar. His eyes glowed in the parting rays of the sun.

The three cubs had caught their elders' restless mood. Nuka prowled and paced until his mother took him by the scruff of his neck and ejected him from the den. Vitani jumped in circles, attacking her own tail. Kovu was fretful and wouldn't sleep.

"I don't want him to be tired for his presentation," Zira complained, pinning him between her thigh and body.

"I thought the presentation was just a silly piece of nonsense?" Scar teased.

"Our son still has to look his best."

Scar was thrilled. They were joking and playing together, like a proper couple. And Zira had said 'our son'! He leaned against her, thrumming with contentment. As for Zira, her heart thumped fast as she tested Scar by referring to Kovu as theirs jointly. She was offering her son as a gift, and offering herself with him. Scar's acceptance forced a high, almost hysterical purr from her. As they lay in the stifling evening with the cranky cubs mewing and fidgeting, their love for each other hurt with a delicious pain.

Nuka had no-one to play with; the rest of the pride lay panting in the shade, and he couldn't find Ed. He pretended to himself that he was a scout, out looking for the King's enemies. Nuka the spy! He liked that idea. When his ears caught a slight noise, he raised one forepaw in an exaggerated gesture of keen alertness, then flattened himself against a boulder and peered around it from narrowed eyes.

What he saw made his mouth hang foolishly open in the way his mother always said made him look more half-witted than he did already. A large lion, bigger by far than Scar and well-covered with muscle, was walking cautiously along the path to Pride Rock, his paws easily following the trail as if he knew it well. In the low light his mane was red as blood, and his hide was golden. He was followed by a slender lioness with fur so pale it looked silver. Her eyes glittered green as Scar's.

Nuka knew for certain sure that these were not guests arriving for the presentation. Choking back a little whimper of fear, he bolted for the safety of his mother.

"Nuka, quiet!" Zira was tetchy with heat and tension, and besides had just succeeded in getting Kovu off to sleep.

"But there's a lion...a stranger in the Pridelands! And he's a big one!"

"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. One of Scar's friends come for the ceremony." She looked lovingly at her little dark cub on the last word.

"Scar hasn't _got_ any friends, except you!" Nuka said rudely. He was upset and frustrated. He wasn't really worried about Scar's ability to see off a strange lion, but he wanted to tell his news and make the King see what a good scout he was. "Where is he?"

"Don't you dare disturb him. He's gone to make Sarabi and the others hunt harder. Oh, they're so stupid and lazy!"

Zira chewed her claws. Although her status as a nursing mother granted her a larger portion of meat than was her normal due, the demands of two growing cubs and the scarcity of game meant that she still felt the pinch of famine hardest of the lionesses. She was sure that if she could only leave her cubs, she would be able to find and bring down a kill - food she could convert to milk for her children.

Nuka's stomach answered with a growl; he was hungry too. "Gee, I hope they catch a..." he was beginning, when a commotion began that was so terrible he lost all thoughts of everything except his mother, and he flung himself upon her and buried his head in her flank.

Zira, listening hard, was frantic with worry for Scar. She wanted to go out and fight for him, to tear his enemies into shreds with her claws and teeth. But motherhood had grown to be stronger fhan ferocity in Zira, and when two loyalties tugged she could not leave her babies. Her _three_ babies. As the terrible night wore on she clutched Vitani and Kovu tight as Nuka snuggled under her chin, his ears pressed flat so he could not hear the roars and shrieks outside.

Zira heard. She heard the voice of the lion she loved above all others, and a stranger's roar rising up to challenge it. She heard battle begin. The terrible roars mingled, but she could tell which was Scar's always. As the sound ebbed and flowed she followed the fight in her mind, wondering who had the upper hand, whether Scar was hurt. Was he bleeding? Dying? At last, she heard one awful wail that made her lips pull away from her teeth in a grimace and her chest heave painfully. There were more noises after that; confusion, scurrying and excited conversation. But she did not hear Scar's voice again, and she knew she never would.

They came for her in the morning, when the storm had conquered the fire and the sun had conquered the storm. A stranger's voice called her name and she emerged bristling, ready to fight to the last drop of blood for her children. Nuka stayed hidden in the den, the twins twining around his legs with high anxious chirrups.

He was so young! His mane was barely grown, yet he had killed the wise, experienced Scar. He must have had help, Zira thought, he must have tricked the king somehow. Sarabi stood at his shoulder, and as Zira looked from one to the other she noticed how much the strong young lion resembled the old queen. _Simba?_ So Scar had not killed a cub, after all!

She tried to snarl, but the noise turned into a sob and she choked it back. Seeing this proud animal, she knew that Scar was truly gone. There were fresh wounds on the stranger's flanks and shoulders; Scar had made them. She wanted to kiss the marks that had been made by her lover's last actions.

"Zira." The lion spoke calmly. "You don't know me, but I lived here long ago. Your mate took the throne that belonged to me, and I have returned to claim it." His brown eyes held hers. "Scar is dead."

Zira had known all night, known since that last great roar. She had lain and held that knowledge to her for long hours as the stars turned overhead. Yet the word itself, spoken aloud at last, still had the power to shock and hurt.

All her life Zira had received pain, and she knew only one way of dealing with it: to give pain in return. To give blow for blow - and word for word. Her lips drew back from her teeth and she snarled her reply:

"_Murderer!_"

Simba could still have won her over, if he had been kind and gentle - as he had intended to be when he entered - while Zira was still reeling from the shock, before her grief gave way to the anger that would turn over the years to madness. But it was not so long since Scar had unjustly called him murderer, and to hear the accusation again from Scar's mate was more than he could bear. 

At that moment, Kovu peeked out from the den and tottered forwards to see what was going on. The King looked down at this small bundle of life - he saw the cocoa-coloured coat, the green eyes, the tuft of dark fur, and drew the obvious and wrong conclusion.

The cubs of a defeated king should, by rights, be killed by the conqueror. It was Pride law as old as that which had betrothed Simba and Nala when they were still babies.

Simba knew at once that he could not do it. He could not be angry with this helpless object, but his anger at the cub's mother was doubled.

He roared as he had roared the previous night, a powerful rumble that the lionesses could feel deep in their chests and coming up through the pads of their feet.

"I am no murderer," Simba said between clenched teeth. "But if you are not outside Pride boundaries when the sun reaches the top of his climb, that may just _change_!" He pushed his muzzle into Zira's face, his throat trembling in a growl. "Take the cub and get out!"

Zira lifted Kovu in her mouth - not by his scruff, but by closing her teeth around his small body so he dangled from her jaws like a dead rabbit. Nuka emerged behind her, shaking as he stared at Scar's killer with frightened, bulging eyes, and Vitani followed Nuka, seemingly unafraid of the big golden lion.

The teenager looked balefully at his small half-brother. He had very little idea what was going on, and he could not quite believe, yet, that Scar was gone forever. But he observed how much angrier the stranger had become when he saw Kovu. It was clearly the Termite's fault that they were being told to leave. His lip curled into a snarl - then trembled as he tried not to cry.

"Nuka?" Sarabi spoke gently. "You don't have to go. You haven't done anything wrong."

Zira snarled and bristled. Her paw, claws out, grabbed Nuka's neck and drew him greedily to her. "How dare you?" she breathed.

"The child is old enough to make up his own mind." Sarabi's eyes caressed the gangly teenager, pleading with him. Although her own son had returned, he was suddenly an adult and a stranger to her. She had lavished her love on Nuka in her most desolate hours, and he was precious to her.

Nuka hesitated. He remembered Sarabi washing him the day he arrived at Pride Rock; Sarabi telling him stories and legends; Sarabi making him feel needed. But as he looked from Sarabi to Zira, he realised something that made him momentarily old and wise: _Zira needed him more_. Curse and strike him though she might, she would be a broken creature if he chose the enemy's mother over his own.

"I'm sorry, Sarabi. But I gotta look after Mom," he said softly.

Sarabi walked to him, avoiding Zira's gaze, and licked his face once from chin to forehead. Nuka sniffled a little. Then he hauled Vitani up in his mouth, throwing his head back to keep from scraping his burden on the ground.

"You have not heard the end of this, Simba," Zira hissed. "The time will come when this justice of yours will be your doom."

With a foreclaw, she drew a deep line in the earth between her little family and their former pride. Then, with a grim, sad dignity, the procession of two walked away from Pride Rock - strangers once more in the lands than had so briefly been their home.

**~ THE END ~**

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_[A/N: Wow, it's over a year since I uploaded the first chapter of this story. Thanks for your patience, and I hope it was worth the wait!]_


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